The news this week that fast food restaurant Burger King had to pull ‘beef burgers’ from its UK outlets which were supplied by an Irish vender has alarmed many Barbadians. Why you ask? Burger King recently opened its doors at Sky Mall formerly Mall Internationale in Barbados. It is a bold move by Bizzy Williams the principal investo given the view that Barbadians are not regarded as burger lovers. Perhaps he is banking on the fact that Bajans have moved on from the McDonalds experience. Nothing wrong with eating horse meat though, the issue like most things nowadays is it is all about the lack of business ethics and public trust. If you say you are selling beef burgers how the hell does it translate to HORSE MEAT? Let us hope that the carcasses of some of those retired horses owned by Bizzy’s brother do not make it into the kitchen of Burger King Barbados.

What has provoked the interest of BU about the coming of Burger King is a statement made by President of the Barbados Chamber of Commerce Lalu Vaswani at the renaming of Sky Mall which coincided with the opening of Burger King:

“… Barbados’ food and beverage and agricultural sectors can greatly benefit from the opportunity to secure long-term supply partnerships with franchises. Equally, it is in the economic interest of franchises to ensure a viable local supply chain, since reinvesting in the localeconomy promotes economic growth and consumer demand,” he said.(Barbados Advocate – 1/28/2013)

It is a free country and as Vaswani also indicated in his statement, the protective duty period is expected to expire within two years, it will not matter two hoots who Barbadians want to come to our shores to do business, neither goods and services. However, should the current state of things not offend Barbadians and cause us to question a growing penchant for junk food? We are an educated people but here it is the figurehead of the captains of industry is reported to be so lavish in his praise of a fast food restaurant setting up in Barbados.

Are we forgetting that Barbados is still fondly referred to as the ‘Amputation Capital’ of the world? And this is despite the political rhetoric coming from Minister of Health Donville Inniss. Why the hell do we have to jump on the bandwagon by welcoming Burger King to Barbados and in the process give further opportunity to deepen our reputation as the Non-communicable Diseases (NCDs) domicile of the world? When our leaders appear to be so accommodating does it not serve to seal a questionable belief by the public that junk food is good?

To the President of the Barbados Chamber of Commerce Lalu Vaswani: what good is Burger King establishing in Barbados if any gains to the local economy are quickly eroded by a rising healthcare expense?

No wonder Bushie is frustrated!

The same logic is extended to questioning the several concessions which this government disgorged to Cost-U-Less, a company which is a retailer and an avarice consumer of scare foreign exchange. Was an impact assessment done before giving permission to Cost-U-Less to setup here? Now tell us why spend billions in educating our people and this is where we find ourselves?

It is the silly season and therefore the sentiments expressed above will be happily be spun by the politicos.

islandgal246 | February 3, 2013 at 8:34 PM |
Is it Hants? Tell me why?
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I must agree with Hants to a certain extent. If you can remember Jeffs and Dougies,you should also remember some of the following Bajan entrepreneurs ,who made a name for themselves in and around Bridgetown,while providing excellent service to the .people of Barbados.
Mr Rollock (5&10) ,Frank Butcher ACME, R.A Griffith (furniture),C.C King, Smith Wrought Iron works,E.H .Lord(e) , F.C. Atwell, Lowes Laundry, L.C Hill ,Eudora’s Supermarket,Straughan’s Garage, Stanley Linton’s Garage, R.D.M Maxwell, James A Tudor, LLoyd Alleyne ,Louis Lynch, Boychild L.E, Smith and his Two-Sons and Fix-it-Right Empire and N.E. Wilson .Plus the omnibus concessionaires, like Mrs Rock, W.R.Coward., Trotman, Birch , Weatherhead and Carr.
Today we are imploring our people who are supposed to be better educated and seemingly more intelligent than most of the persons mentioned above become entrepreneurs, without much success,as they still prefer to hold down a job at Cow or Bizzy. Where did we go wrong? Have we sold out? Ironically most of the businesses mentioned above were situated in Roebuck St. Today,quite sadly, Roebuck Street is owned by Asians and people from the Middle East.

Barbados produced a lot of successful Black business people but they sent their children to University to become professionals. Doctors,Lawyers, Architects etc. but very few studied Business Management with a view to working in the family business.

There were also some business that got crushed by not having the finances to grow to meet the demands of the times.

An example of this is the replacement of shops in the village by Supermarkets.

@Hants
You are correct that many from that black emerging middle class sent their children to School/University to pursue “‘white collar” professions instead of having one or two of their children build on the foundation that they started.

I have another take about the Village shop/Supermarket dynamic, many village shops which did thriving business were allowed to fall into decline because all the natural heirs went “away” seeking fame and fortune instead of building on what was already there, these shops could have morphed into today’s supermarkets but others are eating their lunch.

Seeing a name like Frank Butcher and ACME brings back some memories. Can anyone remember the young man working at a bank at the time who stole money off Frank Butcher’s account, found himself in prison, got raped and released, was given a job by the so called respectable in Bim, now he is a respectable himself. But i remembered how hard Mr. Butcher had to work to keep ACME down by the Globe going for years.

Barbados produced a lot of successful Black business people but they sent their children to University to become professionals. Doctors,Lawyers, Architects etc. but very few studied Business Management with a view to working in the family business.
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The late Cameron Tudor comes to mind. His father James A Tudor, was reported to have owned some 100 shops throughout the island, and operated from where Westburn Plaza at the top of Baxters Road is now located. Daily you could have seen James A Tudor’s fleet of delivery trucks criss- crossing the island , resupplying those shops. Cameron went to Oxford, preferring to study the Classics rather than business. James A Tudor and Sons Ltd, should have taken the initiative and pioneered the supermarket industry throughout Barbados, instead they allowed Super Centre and Goddard to forge ahead. Although I was just a little boy, it broke my heart to see James A Tudor, sitting outside one of his shops in St Joseph, while his empire was being auctioned off. Alleyne Arthur,(no relation to Brute Alleyne one of Tudor’s drivers) bought many of those shop.

Well Well | February 5, 2013 at 8:30 AM |
Seeing a name like Frank Butcher and ACME brings back some memories.
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Did you know that Frank Butcher could not have called himself an Engineer in Barbados, because he did not attend a university? Did you know that he built an airplane from scratch and flew it.?
Long before Frank Butcher started to make buses, he was instrumental in redesigning and rebuilding the body platform on many of those 1960 AEC buses out of England that could not stand up to the rigors of the rough Barbados road network.
Frank Butcher in my book was a real Engineer.

Yesterday I visited a joinery shop to see what they had to offer in St. Peter. It was run by a woman. I asked her how the hell did she get into this type of business that is dominated by men. She told me that she worked as an accountant with a joinery firm. They had the contract for the Hilton. She said that the manager was sent on leave and she volunteered to run the project for the company. After the project the owner said that he was retiring and closing the business. She decided that was an opportunity to her own business. The men who worked for the business now out of work, told her that they would come and work for her if she started a workshop. She began looking to find a place and didn’t have much luck, then she remembered her grandmother’s house that was empty and she moved in. She is still operating her workshop from that location. She works for many of the high end customers on the island. She has not looked back. I raise my glass to her.

To add another twist to the Burger King entry into Barbados.
Tonight I went into Burger King to see what was going on since the horse meat scandal.

Most of the obese persons who came in there ordered double whoppers.
In the next twenty years the health care system is going to be in deep trouble with more diabetics and amputations. These people sat down and ate the double whopper which is very big with a large soda and chips.

islandgal246 | February 5, 2013 at 9:07 PM |
Yesterday I visited a joinery shop to see what they had to offer in St. Peter. It was run by a woman.
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The problem that women faced in this country from some of the aforementioned black businessmen, is that they left their businesses in the hands of their sons, many of whom squandered it in fast cars and faster women, eventually selling out to the Asians and Middle Easterners. Many of the women who were fortunate ,to have succeeded their fathers ran the business well. The daughter of RDM Maxwell comes to mind, and in in most recent times, W.H.King’s daughter who manages the Monrose Complex.

“The FSA advised consumers who had bought affected beef lines from Findus not to eat them. They had not been tested for the presence of phenylbutazone, which is banned in the human food chain. It can cause a serious blood disorder in rare cases.”

@David
Here is an update on the horse meat issue in the UK. Is it possible that…no!!!!
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Why so squeamish about horse meat? That is so British, our diet is predicated on what the British ate but for a quirk of fate we would be eating frog legs and snails and enjoying both.

Gwen Workman sold some of Queens Palace along with her pork cutters back in the day and Bajans never complained.

I am old its against the law to repeat the following nursery rhyme especially the penultimate line.
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There was an old lady who swallowed a fly.
I don’t know why she swallowed the fly,
I guess she’ll die.
There was an old lady who swallowed a spider,
that wiggled and wiggled and tickled inside her.
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly.
I don’t know why she swallowed the fly.
I guess she’ll die.
There was an old lady who swallowed a bird.
How absurd to swallow a bird.
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider,
that wiggled and wiggled and tickled inside her.
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly.
I don’t know why she swallowed the fly.
I guess she’ll die.
There was an old lady who swallowed a cat.
Imagine that, she swallowed a cat.
She swallowed the cat to catch the bird.
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider,
that wiggled and wiggled and tickled inside her.
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly.
I don’t know why she swallowed the fly.
I guess she’ll die.
There was an old lady who swallowed a dog.
My what a hog, to swallow a dog.
She swallowed the dog to catch the cat.
She swallowed the cat, to catch the bird,
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider,
that wiggled and wiggled and tickled inside her.
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly.
I don’t know why she swallowed the fly.
I guess she’ll die.
There was an old lady who swallowed a cow.
I don’t know how she swallowed a cow.
She swallowed the cow to catch the dog.
She swallowed the dog, to catch the cat.
She swallowed the cat to catch the bird.
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider,
that wiggled and wiggled and tickled inside her.
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly.
I don’t know why she swallowed the fly
I guess she’ll die.
I know an old lady who swallowed a horse…
She’s dead of course!